They Shook Hands, But The Royal Pressure Was So Very Faint, That It Was Scarcely Perceptible, Yet, Notwithstanding This Apparent Coldness, They Seated Themselves One On Each Side, Without Ceremony Or Embarrassment.

It was evident that neither Lander nor his brother knew how to deport themselves in the presence of a

King, a thing which the former had never seen in his life but at the courts of Africa, and they, God knows, were not calculated to give him an exalted idea of royalty; but when it had been ascertained, that it was contrary to etiquette at the court of Badagry, for even the heir apparent to assume any other attitude in the royal presence than that of kneeling, it might have occurred to the European travellers, that seating themselves without permission, in the presence of so august a personage as the king of Badagry, might be the forerunner of their heads being severed from their body, which, as it has been detailed in a preceding part of this work, is in that part of the country, a ceremony very easily and speedily despatched. It was, however, necessary that some conversation should take place between the king and his visitors, and therefore the latter began in the true old English fashion, to inquire about the state of his health, not forgetting to inform him at the same time, that they found the weather uncommonly hot, which could not well have been otherwise, considering that they were at that moment not much more than 5 deg.

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